"The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison: Pecola Breedlove is ugly. It's a message she confronts every day, conceived and perpetuated by the white world around her. If only she were beautiful. If only she had sparkling blue eyes like all those pretty white girls, then her life would be meaningful.

Set in a small Ohio town in 1940, "The Bluest Eye" delves into the destructive power of racism, exploring the sinister ways in which it warps perceptions and ruins lives, breeding self-hate even amongst innocent children. Pecola can't escape an overwhelming shame, both for her race and her very being. She's the product of a dysfunctional home. Her father Cholly is a stranger to responsibility, his early life marred by a lack of parental guidance and self-esteem. He constantly feuds with Pecola's mother, Pauline, who is the family's main bread-winner, working as a maid for an affluent white family. Pecola's brother Sammy is too busy dealing with his own problems to be any comfort to his sister, often running away to escape his dreary existence. It all leaves Pecola isolated and alone.

Claudia MacTeer, a childhood acquaintance of Pecola's, narrates the tale, recalling it years after the fact. Claudia and her older sister Frieda meet Pecola when the girl is sent to live with their family after Cholly burns down the Breedlove home. The girls begin a sort of awkward friendship, but it proves little solace for Pecola, whose every attempt at social interaction only leads to further alienation. Other than Claudia and Frieda, the closest thing Pecola has to friends are three neighboring prostitutes. I used to be a friend of some prostitutes, too. Although, generally for only one hour at a time.

Any chance Pecola has at a normal life is dashed when Cholly, her own father, rapes and impregnates her. Desperate for a way out, Pecola ventures to a fraudulent fortuneteller, asking if he could give her blue eyes. If only her eyes were blue, everything would be golden. Her request is met with a demented act of cruelty that pushes Pecola into madness.

In "The Bluest Eye," Ms. Morrison uses remarkably poetic prose to devastating effect, bringing the subtle influences of racism into frightening clarity. No question, she is a staggering talent. The book is full of unforgettable images. Two scenes, in particular, stand out above the rest. The first occurs when Pecola visits a candy store, one of the true joys of childhood, and has her exuberance crushed beneath the condescending leer of the owner. Powerless to speak, Pecola can only point to the candy she wants and dejectedly slink away, the candy's sweetness soured and the vibrant world around her dimmed. The dandelions she so cherished on her walk to the store are now nothing more than weeds.

Later in the book, Claudia and Frieda pay an unexpected visit to Pecola at her mother's employer. Pecola accidentally topples a pie from the counter, splattering its messy contents across the floor and staining the clothes of the little white girl who lives there. Pecola's mother is quick to admonish Pecola and her friends, both verbally and physically, forsaking her own blood in favor of protecting and assuring her white child. The maternal betrayal only reinforces Pecola's inferiority, driving home the point that white is better than black.

The novel is divided into four parts, one for each season of the year in which the events take place. Although, while the sections are arranged linearly, from Autumn through Summer, Ms. Morrison diverges from a traditional narrative, routinely jumping back and forth in time, employing flashbacks and digressions to establish motivation. She'll often take someone of seemingly little importance to the plot, analyze and deconstruct their character through a recap of their personal history, and then thrust them into Pecola's life, usually to the heroine's detriment. While it's an interesting technique, and provides the reader with the thrill of discovery, it does get somewhat repetitive. Patterns are only good when broken.

Another problem I had was the depiction of the male characters. Three of the four adult men presented in the book are pedophiles or at least sexually deviant. Granted, it's a painfully true aspect of life, but I felt it detracted from the overall theme, muddling the ideas of equality and self-worth with moral depravity, even though it can be argued that the manifestation of such behaviors is a direct result of experienced racial inadequacies.

I'd still highly recommend reading "The Bluest Eye." Ms. Morrison's style is beautiful, elevating mere craft into the realm of art. Three and a half shots seem about right, but we don't pour half shots around here, so it will have to settle for three.

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